Socio-cultural norms in ecological psychology: The education of intention

Abstract

Although it is a common claim in the ecological psychology literature that our perception of the environment’s affordances is influenced by socio-cultural norms, an explanation of how this is possible remains to be offered. In this paper, I outline an account of this phenomenon by focusing on the ecological theory of perceptual learning. Two main theses are defended. First, I argue that to account for how socio-cultural norms can influence perception, we must pay attention not only to the education of attention but to the education of intention too. Consequently, I offer some ideas about how intention can be socio-normatively educated. Secondly, I hold that the education of intention occurs via the acquisition of habit-based preferences for particular actions. I claim that once we understand how these habit-based preferences relate to socio-cultural norms, the hypothesis that norms must be represented in the individual’s mind for them to influence affordance perception is no longer needed. If this hypothesis is on the right track, we can have an explanation for how perception can be normatively shaped and direct (non-mediated by internal representations and inferences) at the same time.

Uma abordagem enativista-ecológica para a interpretação de obras ficcionais

“…A proposta deste artigo é considerar a interação entre receptor e obra como ocorrendo de forma semelhante à interação entre organismo e ambiente. De fato, a percepção de affordances de cunho social tem sido muito defendida em várias frentes (SEGUNDO-ORTIN, 2022;SEGUNDO-ORTIN, SATNE, 2022;CARVALHO, 2020). Por isso, não é estranho ou incongruente entender a relação receptor-obra como análoga à relação organismo-ambiente.…”

Intentions in Ecological Psychology: An Anscombean Proposal

“…Several proponents of ecological psychology have expressed the view that the notion of intention might be crucial for the theory (see, e.g., Heft 1989Heft , 2001Heft , 2003Reed 1993;Segundo-Ortin 2022;Brancazio and Segundo-Ortin 2020). For instance, Wagman has offered an ecological characterization of agency as "the ability to select, perceive, and actualize affordances appropriately based on intention" (2019, p. 148, emphasis added).…”

“…As we said before, affordances exist in virtue of objective relations between the perceiver (including her bodily features and skills) and the environment, and their existence is independent of the agent's intentions. Our claim that perception is intentional (or that it is scaled to the agent's intentions) is to be understood as the claim that we modulate our detection of information on the basis of what we aim to achieve (see Brancazio andSegundo-Ortin 2020 andSegundo-Ortin 2022). Imagine, for instance, that we are looking for an object that we can use as a paperweight.…”